How To Preserve Water In Your Garden {8 Tips}

Learning how to preserve water in your Garden is an important issue when learning how to garden.  Today we’re going to discuss 8 of the best ways to use and conserve water in our backyard gardens.  Plants need a few simple things to thrive in our gardens.  Sunshine, great soil…and water.

I garden in Western Washington where rain is plentiful…most of the time. Even those of us in the Pacific Northwest know that there will be months every summer that there will not be enough rainfall to water our fruits and veggies.  And those of you in drier parts of the country know how crucial it is to water wisely and conserve this precious resource.

How To Preserve Water

Tips To Water Plants

The way you water has a great effect on how much water you use. Here are a few tips for wise watering methods…

1.  Watering early in the morning is the best time because less water will evaporate in the heat of the sun.  Early watering also does not promote fungal diseases on certain plants as watering in the evening does.

2.  Watering with a soaker hose or drip system is a very efficient way to water.  This method gets the water directly to the root system without wasting water that is lost in the air and through evaporation off the leaves as does overhead watering.

3.  Placing plants that have similar water usage is an easy way of simplifying watering chores and conserving water.

Conserving Water Methods

Going beyond water methods we can use different strategies to conserving water.

4.  My first and best way of conserving is by generously mulching most of the bare ground in the garden.  Not only does this help the soil stay moist for longer periods it also goes a long way to keep weeds at bay!

Under each plastic mulched tomato row is a soaker hose.  Each path is mulched with newspaper and then straw.  This method proved to be very effective in both saving water and the time spent weeding!

5.  Using rain barrels to capture the rain for storage is another wise way to conserve water.  Here is an example: The Austin area receives an average of 32 inches of rain per year. A 2000 square foot area can capture 36,000 gallons of water!  This could go a very long way to satisfying the needs of a thirsty garden.

6.  Another tip is to add lots of organic matter to you soil, especially if you have sandy soil.  Organic matter holds 10x more water than does sand!

7.  Planting in blocks rather than in rows helps to conserve water by keeping evaporation down as the more closely planted veggies tend to shade the soil

8.  Lastly if you live in a high wind area (as I do) using taller plantings as wind blocks helps cut down on evaporation due to wind.

Water is a precious resource in the garden. If we do everything we can to water wisely and conserve it…not only will our plants thank us…but so will the planet!

How to Garden Series:

Step 1 – Ground Site Selection
Step 2 – Improve Gardening Soils
Step 3 – Garden Beds, Pockets and Pots 101
Step 4 – What To Plant
Step 5 – Gardening with Children
Step 6 – Top 5 Easiest Vegetables to Grow From Seed
Step 7 – Cut Flower Gardening 101
Step 8 – Container Gardening 101
Step 9 – How to Grow a Salsa Garden
Step 10 – How to grow a Perennial Garden
Step 11 – How to Grow Strawberries In Your Garden
Step 12 – Six Steps to Reduce Water Needed in My Garden
Step 12 – Five Best Herbs Go Grow for Kitchen Use
Step 13 – Waging War on Weeds
Step 14 – Plant and Gardening Pest Control
Step 15 – How to Preserve Water in your garden
Step 16 – 7 Ways To Store Vegetables  {from garden}

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Kim is a small organic farmer who lives in the Pacific Northwest raising organic fruits, veggies, critters, kids, and…a camel!  She blogs at the inadvertent farmer where she dishes on living the authentic country life.  She also hosts a yearly summer-long series and contest called KinderGARDENS that is aimed at instilling the love of gardening to the next generation believing that dirty hands make for healthy happy kids!